Step 1

Open your Alexa app on your phone and tap Skills in the sidebar. Search for Twitter Reader and tap Enable. You will then be prompted to log in to your Twitter Account.

Step 2

Once you’ve logged in to Twitter, you can then start using Alexa to interact with your Twitter account. These are the prompts you can use to find out what’s going on on Twitter:

Alexa, open Twitter — This will tell you how this Amazon Echo skills works.

Alexa, ask Twitter what is happening? — This will read out the first three tweets in your feed and let you know who posted them. If a tweet has been retweeted it will be preceded by RT, and hashtags will be preceded by the word “Hashtag”. Alexa will then give you the option to find out more about the accounts that posted those tweets, or to hear more tweets in your feed.

Alexa, ask for Twitter for trends — You can find out what the trending topics are in the region based on your settings. You can hear specific tweets for a trend by saying “Tell me more about number X” — just be sure to keep track of the numbers for each trend item.

Alexa, ask Twitter for trends in [Location] — You can find out what the trending topics are in a specific region or city.

Alexa, ask Twitter for my own tweets — You can hear the latest tweets you posted.

A few things to keep in mind on how this feature works: If you are bilingual on Twitter, Alexa will have some trouble reading out tweets. Tweets written in non-Latin characters simply aren’t read. It can also be a rather tedious way to get through your Twitter feed, but if you want to avoid going down a Twitter rabbit hole, by keeping up with your Twitter feed while doing other things, this might be the way to do it.

If you decide you want to revoke access to your Twitter account go to Settings > Apps and look for “Twitter Skill by Alexa and Twitter integration” and click the Revoke Access button.

Nancy is a writer, photographer and editor, living in the DC area with her husband, their greyhound Ella, and Italian greyhound Oliver. Follow here on her personal blog , on Twitter , Pinterest, and Instagram